This week the Supreme Court heard an important appeal over whether ‘representative’ claims for breaches of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998 can be brought on behalf of other unidentified members of a 'class,' and whether damages are available to them under section 13 of the DPA 1998.
If the court upholds the decision of the Court of Appeal in Lloyd (Respondent) v Google LLC (Appellant) then, even though that case refers to the older DPA 1998, it is expected that this will greatly simplify the process for bringing large consumer actions against companies for breaches of the current Data Protection Act 2018.
These claims have the potential to recover large sums in damages to be split between all affected members of a 'class' of victim, whether they take part in the action or not. This may amount to thousands or even millions of consumers in some cases.
The Judgment under appeal can be found here.
The Supreme Court’s Judgement is not expected for some weeks.
The respondent has issued a claim alleging that the appellant (‘Google’) has breached its duties as a data controller under the DPA to over 4m Apple iPhone users during a period of some months in 2011- 2012, when Google was able to collect and use their browser generated information.
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